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User blog:ZeroOne/Civ5 game log: Conquest of the New World
Alright, so, I figured that after the fictional historical scenario I'd try the historically apparently more accurate scenario, Conquest of the New World. It is set in the 1500s when Spain, England and France sent ships across the Atlantic to find a way to China, but ended up into America instead. I figured I'd rectify the historical wrong-doings of the conquistadors and play as the Incan civilization and fend the Europeans off. Well, it didn't quite go that way then, but more on that later. First, I learned that the game would last 100 turns or until the first Civ would reach 1000 points, i.e. the objective of the scenario was just to get as many points as possible. I also learned that you'd get points for sending a Caravel to China and bringing back Treasure units. Turns out I misunderstood the rules, as the caravels are actually expended once they reach "China" (a special area in the ocean at the west) and you get the points immediately. The Treasure units are generated when cities are captured. On top that, you do still get points the old-fashioned way as well. So, not too realistic a setup after all: why would the Incan, Aztec or Iroquois civilization try to reach China?? So anyway, I started the game on the Prince level as the Incans. I had three settlers at start, but didn't establish my capital city until the second turn after having moved the settlers into better places, namely one to the shore, which seemed like a good idea given that the idea was to build caravels. Turns out the shore was apparently near the place where California would later be established. ;) At least for me, the game started with all the ancient era techs and some classical and medieval era techs. At first I figured I'd beeline towards the technology that gives me the caravels and chose Optics as the first thing to research, but after I had researched it I realized I'd probably need some better land units and stuff for the time I met the Europeans, so that plan didn't hold for too long. The social policies seem to be unaltered from the main game and I couldn't decide which track(s) to pursue and ended up adopting almost all of the tracks and just few policies of each since they all have their benefits. x) I soon met both Hiawatha and Montezuma, who were both neutral towards me. In addition, there were some city-states and barbarians. France's Francis I's ships were the first European ships that my units met, on turn 15. Much to my positive surprise he also approached with a neutral attitude. I then allied with the militaristic city-state of Seminole who was located on an islands towards the south from my region, and I received some units from them throughout the rest of the game. Around turn 32 I established my fourth city near a source of iron, as after learning Iron working I was disappointed because there were no iron around my current region and as such I couldn't build any swordsmen. Isabella of Spain approached me also with a neutral attitude on turn 21 and some twenty turns later we actually announced a Declaration of Friendship, which didn't make Montezuma or Francis I happy. At that point I had actually seen neither Monty's or Isabellas cities, just the Iroquois cities towards north. It wasn't until 1539, or turn 49, when I found the first Spanish city of San Juan towards north-east from my region. The barbarians were quite aggressive and most of my military units were Slingers, so they couldn't have defended them against melee attacks too well, so I thought it best to just explore with a couple of scouts, which was slow. Altough the Spanish city I actually found with a recently trained fast Horseman unit. Next to the Spanish city of San Juan I found the French city of Montreal. Around 1542 Isabella contacted me and asked if I wanted to join a war against Francis I. I had amassed quite a few units already, and I thought it would of course be a good idea to get rid of one of the players, so I agreed to go to the war if given 10 turns to prepare. I then positioned my units around Montreal (and met Isabella of England for the first time while doing that) and tried to ask for the other native tribes to be my allies, but they politely declined. Even the strategically positioned city-state of Muisca wouldn't be my ally as France had apparently paid them ridiculous amounts of money. When me and Isabella then declared war against France, Montezuma actually declared a war against me. Luckily I fended off his units as they approached from the direction to which I was generally already moving my units, and the war was quite brief with him losing more units than me. Unfortunately it quickly became painfully obvious that my units would be no match against the French ones: they were way more advanced. I still hoped that with the help of Isabella's army I could take Montreal, but turns out Isabella's ranged units just wouldn't attack the city, leaving the bombarding for two of my Slingers and a Catapult of mine! And that was in vain: I could hurt the city for about 3 hitpoints a turn, and the city would then just heal that amount of hitpoints right back. The "war" went on for 15 to 20 long turns until Isabella negotiated peace with Francis I, and naturally I had to do the same. Isabella then even turned hostile against me! To get some compensation I then used my troops to conquer the city-state of Muisca that I couldn't bribe to be my ally before the war. That I did partly because I had just re-read the briefing and learned that you can actually get the Treasure units by conquering cities! During the war I also got an announcement that Montezuma's caravel had reached China (and then another), and then I managed to take one of my own caravels there until the treasures of China had been looted and no more caravels could access it. (See, turns out the amount of caravels that can enter China in a game is limited to three.) And you cannot bring the caravels back, they are just expended and turned into points once they reach China. So anyway, with 18 turns left I held the third position with 444 points, Monty leading with the whopping score of 854 and Hiawatha being the second with 575 points! The final 18 turns were somewhat excruciating as I knew I couldn't gather that many points anymore. Just to try something, I captured England's ally, the city-state of Yanomami to the east from my region and moved the Treasure I got from there to my capital. Isabella then declared war on me on the final turn of the game, but I didn't feel like "just one more turn" at that point anymore, so I ended up losing with the score of 758 (rank "Neville Chamberlain"). :/ In retrospect I should've played way more aggressively. Obviously the Native American technology is no match for the European technology, so I probably should've conquered the Iroquois and/or Aztec lands. Alternatively, I should've trained way more Settlers and established a way larger empire to get more points. What was surprising, though, is that the European nations didn't do that well, so I kind of feel like I want to try this scenario again as one of them. :) Category:Blog posts Category:Game reports (Civ5)